This Is The Way The World Ends

Just got back from a memorial mass for a friend's sister. A fitting end to a horrid year. As I am not a Roman Catholic myself, I was very interested in the rituals of another "point of view". The Priest was wonderful (the guy was my age and I could certainly see myself having a beer or six with him). He told the tale of Lazarus but debunked it somewhat and, despite the fairy tale prayer-speak, was able to convey to THIS heathen that it's all about love.

Fucking-A!

The missus and I came out of it as unconvinced as ever in organized spirituality, but, as always, grateful that there is a panacea for those in psychic pain; however hollow it might be.




The Hollow Men
T.S. Eliot


Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Humbug

And good tidings for all. My holiday wish is for us all to have a fuckload better year in 2010 !!!!!!

Joey Ramone's Last show



Toonage
The Damned - There Ain't No Sanity Claus
Crucial Youth - Christmas Time For The Skins
Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)
Ramones - I Believe In Miracles

Attn: Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame - Eat Shite

So the Schlock and Troll Hole of Fame has announced their electee's. Big Farking Deal. I still hold that any Rock N Roll Hall of Fame that has Billy fucking Joel in it is automatically illegitimate.

So, who's this years' honorees?:

The Stooges: Score one for rawk. These miscreants should have been inducted the day they decided to invent this museum. Too bad Ron Ashton and Dave Alexander won't be there to enjoy it. Hope somebody brings a jar of peanut butter. And some Heroin.

ABBA - Well, if you have to one Swedish Pop band to get hot looking Nordics to visit the Hall and then toplessly bathe on Lake Erie... i suppose Abba is as good as choice as any.

Jimmy Cliff - And if you need a movie star who wasn't even a rastafari and he happens thru the movie to introduce Reggae to the masses... well that's OK by me too.

The Hollies - And the de rigeour British Invasion band (what's next Hermans' Hermits?)

And the writers: DAVID GEFFEN; BARRY MANN & CYNTHIA WEIL; ELLIE GREENWICH & JEFF BARRY
JESSE STONE; MORT SHUMAN; OTIS BLACKWELL - No problem on them.

The Sex Pistols "no thank you" letter

Who did I leave out? Kiss? No, shot down. Rush? Nope, shot down, The Damned? The Buzzcocks? The Replacements? The Jam? aaaaarrrggghh

Fucking Genesis got in. Fucking Genesis got in. Fuck you Rock n roll hall of fame.

Eat shit Jann Wenner.

Iggy And The Stooges give Madonna the treatment.

Punk Rock & Trailer Parks

I just read and was completely overwhelmed by the graphic novel: Punk Rock And Trailer Parks. You might know the author/artist, Derf from his work on The City and other alt-comics. Additionally, he penned the classic: My Friend Dahmer (yeah- about growing up with Jeffrey Dahmer).

Punk Rock And Trailer Parks tells the story of a geek named Otto; A high school nerd in 1980, living outside of Akron, Ohio. Otto, gets tall, discovers Punk Rock and intersects with The Ramones, Joe Strummer, Wendy O Williams, Stiv Bators and others. There's tragedy, pathos, lunacy, pregnant holy-rollers, comedy and cartoon tits. What more do you need?
Derf intro's the tale as "it's not a true story... but it could be." And parts of it should resonate in all of you, especially if you're readin' this blog to begin with! As Derf wrote to me, regarding where "Otto" would be today: "Otto is out there somewhere, probably running an illegal music file-sharing site, living under an alias and dodging Music Industry lawyers...."

So go buy it! Support art. And punk rock!

Click here for a nice interview with Derf

I'm Not There

Thanks to all that have sent good vibes my way. It is much appreciated.

One byproduct of my new unemployment is the opportunity to "better" myself. I have been stone cold sober for 10 days and hitting the gym.

Another is that I am taking on-line free courses at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Amazing that they just give this stuff away.

So, I'll be fit, healthy and well educated on the dole!

I have been networking and have some prospects.. but HOPE IS THE MOST SEDUCTIVE DRUG OF ALL!

And it has been nice to spend extra bonus time with Mrs. Nomad... it's sort of like being in our retirement years, but we can still do things!

Yesterday, I saw the Bob Dylan psuedo-bio flick I'M NOT THERE. Wow. It was breathtaking. As confusing, convuluted, masked and intiguing as the man himself. It's loaded with classic Dylan tunes as several actors (Richard Gere, Kate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger) depict Dylan-esque characters at different times of his life. For example, Kate Blanchett handles the 1965 amphetamine laced Zimmy incredibly.

Highly recommended.

Blindsided & Backstabbed

Laid off. Reduced In Force. Blindsided. Backstabbed. And fucked.

My worst (non familial) nightmare happened this past week. The bullet with my name on it caught me square in the back. Right now I am experiencing alternating scenarios of the Kubler Ross 5 stages of dying.

The one that Kubler Ross never talks about is terror of the future. How will I support my family? How will I pay my mortgage?

My (old) company is circling the drain, but this still came as a complete shock. I had about a 2 hour warning when I was able to decipher the smoke signals. I had spent the last couple of weeks trying to save someone's job. Guess what? That "someone" was spared and took MY job. I will give the bastards credit...they hid it well and the knowledge of my corporate beheading was kept to a very select few. The "package" that they offered me might have well have been shit wrapped in an old cardboard box. Still trying to negotiate a better one. After a decade and a half, I deserve better.

The hardest job is finding one.